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Parliamentary Pay!!

The issue of MPs’ pay has always been a thorny one. Some MPs have consistently argued that MPs don’t get paid enough and claimed that people are put off going into politics because of the salary levels. I’ve always disagreed with this view – there is never any shortage of people standing for election, and we receive a salary that is significantly more than double the average wage.
In the last Parliament we finally voted away the right to decide our own salary and to put it in the hands of the Senior Salaries Review Board. I believed that this was the right thing to do, but I wrongly assumed that the SSRB would also take Government policy into consideration when deciding on our pay. Given that the Government has imposed a public sector pay freeze on salaries above £21,000 how can the SSRB then decide that we should receive a £1000 increase in salary?
We are now in a situation that the only way to avoid this pay increase is for Parliament to vote against the increase, thereby once again interfering in the decision-making process on our pay.
Unfortunately MPs will no doubt get the blame, even though on this occasion they are not responsible for the decision.
Public sector workers will have every right to be angered by this debacle.

Disgruntled seems unaware that the country is in enormous debt and is still borrowing beyond it’s means. It is easy to be critical when you have no alternative to offer. Perhaps Manchester council should shoulder part of the burden we all have to carry, and dip into the 110 million kitty they have squirreled away for situations such as these. But then they would be saving council jobs, and you can’t score as many political points doing that as you get when you announce job cuts. At least the Lib Dems are trying to get the frontloading changed, not shrugging and walking away.

Matt, it is not about the fact that yes, we have a deficit that needs to be addressed, urgently. It is about the way in which the coalition are approaching the problem, to coin a phrase like “Bulls in a China Shop”.

The frontloading of the cuts are causing all the local authorities affected, not just Manchester authorities, massive, and avoidable difficulties. If the cuts were spread out over the 4 year period, the changes would be much easier to manage for everyone concerned. But no, that would be too much like common sense.

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